How IBM Plans to Make Money From Supercomputers

IBM's (NYSE: IBM) recent stock performance has been disappointing. Big Blue delivered a negative 3% return in the past 12 months. A huge name in the tech world, IBM is famous not only for having a presence in every major tech segment, from large hardware to services, but also for its capacity to reinvent itself. For example, the company sold its profitable PC business to Lenovo in 2004 to focus on software solutions.

However, in the past few quarters, Big Blue and other traditional tech players -- such as Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) -- had a difficult time trying to improve top-line performance. In particular, as institutional clients continue cutting tech budgets -- and relying more on public cloud providers -- it's getting harder for IBM to continue selling private cloud solutions. To improve revenue, the company plans to invest in emerging technology and create new markets. An example is IBM's Watson supercomputer, which could bring in $10 billion in revenue within 10 years. But how exactly does IBM plan to make money from selling supercomputers?

Source: IBM Corporate website.

The Watson supercomputerIBM's Watson is an artificially intelligent computer system capable of answering questions in natural language. The supercomputer became famous after winning the first prize of $1 million on "Jeopardy!," after having access to more than 200 million pages of content, including the full text of Wikipedia. The system is also able to carry out hypothesis generation. Moreover, it can learn from its past mistakes, and therefore get smarter with each iteration.

It's no sci-fi, it's just businessThis may sound like a sci-fi movie.But the Watson supercomputer has been developed with a clear business focus in mind. For example, after IBM's engineers managed to shrink Watson from the size of a bedroom to a pizza-box sized computer, Big Blue got its first piece of business by renting Watson to hospitals and health-care networks.

As Forbes contributor Bruce Upbin notes, IBM struck a 2012 deal with Memorial Sloan Kettering to use Watson for analyzing thousands of cancer-patient records in order to provide full evidence-based treatment decisions. The supercomputer was programmed in such a way that it doesn't tell doctors what to do. Instead, it provides several options with various degrees of confidence, so doctors can make the final decision.

Watson and its financial applicationsThe supercomputer could also generate meaningful sales in the financial field, where the capacity of processing large amounts of information in short time is highly appreciated.

Reuters alone is believed to publish more than 9,000 pages of financial news every day. Watson could process all this information, including data about transactions, emails, and research documents, to suggest optimal investment decisions. Singapore-based DBS Group Holdings plans to begin using Watson to help financial planners in wealth management provide more customized service.

Investing in the futureIBM seems confident about the technology behind Watson. The company wants to improve sales and execution. That's why Big Blue recently announced it plans to invest more than $1 billion to establish a new business unit for Watson. The plan is to boost the headcount at Watson Group to around 2,000. Most of the new recruits may be salespeople and consultants.

Foolish bottom lineLast year was a tough year for traditional tech players. To continue growing, the key is to focus on emerging technologies with the ability of creating new markets.

Oracle, a leader in database technology, initially suffered from poor sales of its applications businesses. In response, the software maker has been rolling out its own cloud-based products. Likewise, Intel, which missed the smartphone revolution, recently announced its x86 Pentium-class Edison wearable computer. And as the Watson project shows, IBM is also innovating and searching for new markets. Watson's ability to answer questions in natural language, its several business applications, and the upcoming increase in sales employees should help Big Blue to capitalize on supercomputers.

The two words Bill Gates doesn't want you to hear...There are few things that Bill Gates fears. Cloud computing is one of them. It's a radical shift in technology that has early investors getting filthy rich, and we want you to join them. That's why we are highlighting three companies that could make investors like you rich. You've likely only heard of one of them, so be sure to click here to watch this shocking video presentation!

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

Adrian your scummy remark about Bill Gates being so afraid of cloud computing- only indicates your sophomoric command of IT technology. Microsoft leads or is a major contender in every area of Cloud software. Microsoft's prominence in

cloud computing was accomplished under Steve Balmers reign. Perhaps if you would give up your efforts as a reporter and take up used cars you could experience some success- either that or do some serious research before you parrot pop baloney on Microsoft

Credit Suisse re-iterates their opinion on IBM weekly if not daily. They must be desperate to make their shorts work. In 2012, Credit Suisse lost 12% of their total financial assets. It is likely that CS will miss their estimates for 2013, as they have at least missed them for the two previous years. I would pay them no attention if you are a long-term shareholder in IBM because IBM will likely be more successful going foward. Years from now this will look like a buying opportunity for IBM and no one will listen to Kulbinder Garcha or Credit Suisse.